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2020-05-21, 02:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
In regards to the whole animated space sci-fi show, what about Voltron: Legendary Defender? I didn't watch all of it, but it seemed pretty decent. It's pretty recent, but I think it concluded a year or two ago.
I'd name others, but nothing really comes to mind. Space opera isn't really my genre, and I don't watch a whole lot of animation. As a general rule, in science fiction I prefer scenes to be dry conversation and my spaceship battles to be pointlessly dull and abrupt, which basically rules out the genre for my particular taste.
As far as animated shows go, I think it's sort of a self-reinforcing problem. I avoided giving Bojack Horseman a try because I had made a natural assumption it would just be another one of those dime-a-dozen juvenile ADHD edgelord shows. And it's probably the most mature show I've seen in a long time, animated or not. I wouldn't really describe that as a personal bias against animation, more of an educated (wrong) guess about the maturity level of shows that settle on becoming animated and aimed at "an older audience". In short, I think the choice to be animated tends to be as much as for marketing purposes as it is for budgetary purposes.
I don't think it's about holding the medium in contempt more than it is about people sort of expecting animation to mean a certain thing and it also usually being a justified expectation. So a "serious, adult" animated sci-fi show would probably, fair or not, have to overcome my inclined indifference towards it.I write a horror blog in my spare time.
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2020-05-21, 03:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
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2020-05-21, 03:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-05-21, 06:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
I don't think the quality of the special effects make that much difference.
Yes, these days we are mainly used to good quality effects, but look at old BBC SciFi dramas, some of them had terrible special effects (really low budget) but were still regarded as good shows.
Now if a show is bad, poor special effects will make it worse, but good ones won't save it.
If a show is good, good special effects will help, but poor ones only become "quirky" or "something to laugh at" while people still enjoy the show.
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2020-05-21, 06:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-05-21, 09:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.
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2020-05-21, 11:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2012
Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Last edited by Peelee; 2020-06-07 at 08:49 PM.
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2020-05-21, 06:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
They had excellent writing! You can get other things by throwing money at the production - high-rate actors, special effects, etc. But good writing isn't simply a matter of money. There are great writers who would love to work for a fraction of what the other aspects of production get.
Classic Doctor Who had very little budget, had very rudimentary special effects, and was sometimes silly. But sometimes it was utterly brilliant - even in the same episode with the silly stuff.Alignments are objective. Right and wrong are not.
Good: Will act to prevent harm to others even at personal cost.
Evil: Will seek personal benefit even if it causes harm to others.
Law: General, universal, and consistent trump specific, local, and inconsistent.
Chaos: Specific, local, and inconsistent trump general, universal, and consistent.
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2020-05-21, 06:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
But interestingly, both B5 and BSG had their "capital ship" moments. B5 was upgraded to be a match for a heavy Earth Force Cruiser, and is able to hold it's own.
BSG is even more extreme. It is modeled more on the WW2 carriers, which packed a good deal of firepower (as opposed to moder carriers which primarily rely on the other ships for protection). But Galactica (and Pegasus) were regularly able to go toe to toe with Cylon base Ships and win at equal odds.
Interestingly, in BSG the only large military ships the Colonials have (at least that we ever see) are battlestars. There are a few different classes of Battlestars, but you never hear of smaller military ships except for Vipers and Raptors."That's a horrible idea! What time?"
T-Shirt given to me by a good friend.. "in fairness, I was unsupervised at the time".
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2020-05-21, 08:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Originally Posted by Caledonian
Classic Doctor Who had very little budget, had very rudimentary special effects, and was sometimes silly. But sometimes it was utterly brilliant - even in the same episode with the silly stuff.
I can see how people might enjoy that, but I just don’t. Tried watching the new one with Ms. Doctor and it was much the same. The writing, if it was there, was drowned out by the goofy, the absurd, and the quiet dripping from the overchewed scenery.
Originally Posted by tomandtish
But Galactica (and Pegasus) were regularly able to go toe to toe with Cylon base Ships and win at equal odds.
And they might have won, but at a massive cost, since those engagements usually resulted in one or more civilian ships being lost, as well as ever-mounting damage to the battlestars. They tended to avoid capital engagements if they could.
Originally Posted by tomandtish
Interestingly, in BSG the only large military ships the Colonials have (at least that we ever see) are battlestars. There are a few different classes of Battlestars, but you never hear of smaller military ships except for Vipers and Raptors.
I can’t recall offhand if there was anything more shown in Razor. I recall a couple shots of the shipyard where Pegasus was docked, but if there was anything else it was only onscreen for a second or two.
There was a smaller cruiser shown in Blood & Chrome, but I don’t remember if it was a military vessel or a civilian transport modified for a special mission. And one of the spinoffs—Razor, Plan, B&C—had a couple shots of broken battlestars drifting in their own debris fields, but those were all capital ships.
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2020-05-21, 08:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
During the miniseries, they make specific note that they've lost 30 Battlestars in the opening attack, and that this is 1/4 of the fleet. I strongly suspect that if they used smaller ships the ratio would be much higher. So I suspect it is Battlestars, Vipers, and Raptors.
Regarding damage to the Battlestar over time, you hit probably the one thing I hated most as the show ended. She's slowly breaking down. Not because of the damage she's taken without dry dock opportunities, but because yard workers apparently took shortcuts in building her. That really pissed me off as it seemed to cheapen what she'd been through. Much better to just say that the damage has added up over time.Last edited by tomandtish; 2020-05-21 at 08:57 PM.
"That's a horrible idea! What time?"
T-Shirt given to me by a good friend.. "in fairness, I was unsupervised at the time".
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2020-05-22, 11:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Originally Posted by tomandtish
She's slowly breaking down. Not because of the damage she's taken without dry dock opportunities, but because yard workers apparently took shortcuts in building her.
But I'm pretty sure the rough treatment factored into it, both from repeated Cylon attacks (including direct nuke hits) and some of their more interesting combat tactics, in particular falling like a brick through New Caprica's atmosphere. (Still one of the most awesome moves in SF history.)
By the time Galactica made her final jump it had all added up. I'd have to go through fourth season again to catch the exact quote. Sadly I had a work deadline during the recent marathon on BBC America, or I'd be more up on this.
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2020-06-04, 04:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
What stigma? Space sci-fi has seen film after film, broken into TV repeatedly and TV like formats on streaming services even more, and to the extent it's dismissed in the context of literary fiction (which is a phenomenon both overstated and contextualized by a lot of dismissing of literary fiction by sci-fi fans) that's not exactly a differentiating factor between it and most other TV. "This sci-fi is a frivolous genre, unlike cop and medical dramas" is what you might call a fringe position.
On the other hand there's also Love, Death, Robots. It's an anthology with a pretty wide range in most respects, but not being for kids is a bit of a throughline for every story in it. American animation hasn't been aimed exclusively at kids for decades now. Sure, it's a bit of an outlier as works go, but it wasn't exactly a small budget production and it's not the animation that makes it weird but the anthology format, which almost never shows up in film.I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2020-06-05, 03:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Last edited by Peelee; 2020-06-07 at 08:50 PM.
Knowledge brings the sting of disillusionment, but the pain teaches perspective.
"You know it's all fake right?"
"...yeah, but it makes me feel better."
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2020-06-07, 07:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
In Space, no one can hear the fat lady sing!
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2020-06-07, 08:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Please do not accuse other users of being bots. If you suspect an account breaks the Forum Rules, the best course of action is to report it for the moderator team to investigate.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-06-08, 06:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
What if we think someone unspecified that we aren't going to name is a bot, but that bot is not really breaking the forum rules and creating useful discussions, and we mainly want to talk about how awesome it is that we have spambots that can create reasonable discourse now?
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2020-06-08, 04:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-06-08, 08:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Alignments are objective. Right and wrong are not.
Good: Will act to prevent harm to others even at personal cost.
Evil: Will seek personal benefit even if it causes harm to others.
Law: General, universal, and consistent trump specific, local, and inconsistent.
Chaos: Specific, local, and inconsistent trump general, universal, and consistent.
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2020-06-08, 09:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-06-09, 04:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Heaven Sent has pretty much just the Doctor in it and it easily features among the best episodes of the entire show from 1963 to 2019.
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Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2020-06-09, 04:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Dark Matter started good, and then went down the drain.
Killjoys was good from...Well, close-to-start, all the way to finish.
The Expanse was dumb. Then it got good.
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2020-06-09, 02:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Agreed to these 3 being amazing.
Though to understand and fully appreciate heaven Sent, one more or elss needs to know a lot about the Dr. already.
As for the original Topic: WHile ScinceFantasy has kind of achieved a full market penetration, its still not seen as Mainstream even for the cases where it clearly is.
Wha tis it that asinine Action, boring Semihistorical Drama and clicheed Romance have that that genre just doesnt, one must ask?A neutron walks into a bar and says, “How much for a beer?” The bartender says, “For you? No charge.”
01010100011011110010000001100010011001010010000001 10111101110010001000000110111001101111011101000010 00000111010001101111001000000110001001100101001011 100010111000101110
Later: An atom walks into a bar an asks the bartender “Have you seen an electron? I left it in here last night.” The bartender says, “Are you sure?” The atom says, “I’m positive.”
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2020-06-09, 04:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
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2020-06-09, 04:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2011
Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
The Expanse was never "dumb." It's intelligent and very well done.
The first season was a very slow burn, and they focused a little too much on the future-noir detective and his odd obsession with a particular missing person. But the second season ramped up the action and the third season was outstanding.
Sadly I haven't been able to watch the fourth season, but I have high expectations for whenever I'm able to.
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2020-06-09, 05:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Honestly I liked the first season of the expanse more than the following seasons. The mystery was actually really intriguing but since they have sort of focused to much on people I care less about, still good but less so.
I do hope they don't focus to much on the new guy from last season and he ends up being built up for nothing and actually start focusing on the ancients again. If his stupid plan actually succeeds I might actually stop watching.
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2020-06-09, 06:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2012
Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Dark Matter started good, and stayed fairly good, but wobbled.
Killjoys...eh...ok.
The Expanse was mostly good, but was a very slow burn
Star Trek Discovery is the worst pile of random sound and images ever
Star Trek Picard had a dumb story, was too slow and pointless, but had some nice gems
Battlestar Glaticia started out good and strong, almost hard sci fi...and then wandered lost with no direction
The thing is it's not Sci Fi, it's modern TV shows. It's easy enough to come up with an idea and maybe half a season....but then most shows wobble, fall and crash and burn. There just does not seem to be a commitment to making a good show, they just want to toss out "a show".
The worst is few shows can keep up a story, or worse a mystery. The first season often just drags as the show slowly does nothing until the end of the season. Then the next season is mostly lost as they ran of both story and mystery.
And that many shows do the sad 11 or 13 episodes a season makes it even worse.
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2020-06-11, 06:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
"Don't Blink" is probably one of my favorite episodes of any genre fiction ever. It's high concept done really well, with awesome use of horror tropes and storytelling devices.
Agreed on Dark Matter and Killjoys, but I still sort of liked The Expanse S1. As people here have said, it was a slow burn and I didn't love the Miller plotline, but I still thought it was cool and they built up the mystery over time.
Absolutely agreed on STD and Picard - what a waste of time. I haven't seen BSG, but I intend to one day.
I think this stems from the fact that a lot of network TV shows can't really commit to a multiple season myth arc by the very nature of the medium they're being broadcast on. Each season is self-contained because there's rarely any certainty that a first season show will get renewed. Then you have to watch individual episode ratings, look at viewership numbers...
The truth is that if you look at successful TV shows, no matter what kind of genre they're in, either have a very focused premise / idea that they aren't afraid to play with or turn on its head - think more like Breaking Bad - or a wide open concept that allows them to visit lots of different storylines and still maintain focus on a few core plot threads - Game of Thrones is a good example. Arguments about the merits of individual shows is one thing, but a lot of TV shows go with 'safe' ideas that are niche and cool for maybe 1-2 seasons, but fail to innovate and quickly run out of new places to take the story / characters.
Anyway, that's sort of off topic. To answer the OP's question, I don't think that bad space opera or bad TV are perpetuating the sigma around space sci fi on TV, or at least not any more than the nature of TV as a medium (budgets were mentioned before as a big limiting factor) and the unwillingness of many writers to take big narrative risks with TV.Awesome Simurgh avatar by smutmulch!
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2020-06-12, 08:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2012
Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Though this is the reason to make a good TV show in the first place. So many shows have a good first couple episodes and then just sort of drift for most of the season. Then have a good ending. And that drift is right where you loose viewers.
And that is on top of the show just being boring too.
There are lots of bad shows....and not just sci fi ones.
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2020-06-12, 07:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Is bad space opera perpetuating the stigma around space sci fi on TV?
Making good content is really hard. The vast majority of terrible shows / movies / novels / etc. isn't made because creators set out to make something awful; they're trying to make good stuff, and failing.
Alignments are objective. Right and wrong are not.
Good: Will act to prevent harm to others even at personal cost.
Evil: Will seek personal benefit even if it causes harm to others.
Law: General, universal, and consistent trump specific, local, and inconsistent.
Chaos: Specific, local, and inconsistent trump general, universal, and consistent.